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Act of Valor

12/31/2012

Almost all modern military action movies are preoccupied with showing the frenzy, confusion and gore of battle. Act of Valor does the opposite. It focuses on the terrifying efficiency of the American military. Navy SEALs show up and kill everyone. That's all the movie is really about. Sure, it kind of has a story in-between shootouts. The SEALs are assigned missions. They go on missions. The film has characters too, I guess. There was the leader with a baby on the way, his friend: the second in command, a sniper...there's a guy with a beard. Whatever. Boomsticks.

This movie has one goal, and that's all anyone should judge it by: to show how badass SEALs are. It succeeds. The good guys shoot lots of bad guys in the face and do cool sliding moves while firing and blow up cars with bad guys in them, plenty of slow-mo action, and they protect America.

The film's marketing campaign prominently broadcasts the fact that all the actors on the SEAL team were played by real Navy SEALs, which turned out exactly how one would expect. The acting is wooden and all the action is rigidly well-formed and photogenic.

The film is directed by ex-stunt coordinators, Scott Waugh and Mike McCoy, who made sure all the technical aspects of the film were well-executed, but couldn't do much for the lack of professional actors or lack of plot. Who cares? It hardly harms an otherwise solid action film. If you expect awesome gunfights, watch it. If you expect anything more, anything at all, you won't get it. There's nothing else to this movie. That's not a bad thing.

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Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Edit

12/13/2012

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I bought Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace the day it came out and before I owned a DVD player. The VHS came with a memorabilia booklet and three film cells from the movie. They were three almost identical pictures of the two viceroys from an early scene in the movie. I was a fan of its breathtaking action sequences, enhanced by the fact that they take place in the Star Wars universe, which is a treasure trove of characters and creative visualizations. But the editing sucked. The Phantom Edit fixed many editing issues with the film and even managed to improve some of the more distracting character tangents.

George Lucas has always been incapable of allowing cuts to his his favorite ideas. That sentiment played well in American Graffiti because its entirety was made of whimsical and youthful episodes that danced from character to character with only the thinnest connections, like real high school. It worked well in Star Wars in 1977 because we were endlessly entertained by so many innovative science fiction creations. By the time 1999 rolled around, we've watched and rewatched two Star Wars sequels. They've developed nothing short of religious reverence and a following that has scrutinized every minute of running time and an audience that cherishes the gaps in knowledge unexplored by the creator of the franchise. We had been introduced to other rich worlds from The Fifth Element, Aliens, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Dark City. The Matrix was still fresh in our minds from a few months earlier.

We have been spoiled by excellent action sequences in great movies like Die Hard, Terminator 2, and The Road Warrior and even lackluster movies like Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Red Heat and Blind Fury. Modern action movies mostly lose our attention when they string together strong action sequences with menial dialogue and a pedestrian plot. When the initial excitement of seeing new jedis and lightsabers is over, reflection on George Lucas's theatrical release reveal fluff that Lucas forced into the final cut. He couldn't get enough Jar-Jar slapstick or naive exclamations from a young Anakin.

The Phantom Edit was edited by Mike J. Nichols, a professional editor and Star Wars junkie, whose brilliance doesn't come from the removal of inane Jar Jar blathering (which is, in fact, removed) but from trimming long moments of emotional glances and streamlining scenes that hang on special effects shots. Lucas admires his team's extraordinary efforts to mesmerize the audience and perhaps couldn't bring himself to trim the hard work. Nichols had no such issue. The fatty tissue is heartlessly excised. Not only that, he alters the background information that foolishly reassigned the power of the Force to a biological phenomenon and keeps the Force safely mysterious, in accordance with the original trilogy.

Nichols couldn't make Jake Lloyd's acting any less flat. He couldn't give Darth Maul more screen time. But with what he was working with, he gave us the best Star Wars prequel we could hope for. This is the definitive edition for Star Wars fans.

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Game Change

12/5/2012

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I sought out Game Change for a round-about reason. I knew it was "that Sarah Palin movie" and didn't have much inclination to watch a left-wing propaganda piece. I had already developed a fairly robust set of opinions about Palin and didn't need to see a movie about her. I read Roger Ebert's rave review of the film back in March, but hadn't made any effort to see the movie. Later in the year, an impressive and sensible younger Republican named Steve Schmidt, who is a well-spoken, passionate fiscal conservative, landed on my radar. I found out that he was one of the protagonists of Game Change played by Woody Harrelson. Now, I would watch a movie about that guy.

For the first thirty minutes of Game Change, a viewer maybe unaware of the political persuasion of the filmmakers. Even afterwards, the film centers on characters who champion conservative ideals. They are the heroes of the film, after all. Julianne Moore's portrayal of Sarah Palin is surprisingly sympathetic. She's fiercely loyal to McCain and genuinely likable, even if the movie reinforces the idea that she was woefully unqualified for the position (because she was). I felt bad for her ignorance at times.

Only when Steve Schmidt asked Palin about the English-American alliance did we understand that the film would focus on her educational shortcomings. The film dramatizes her botched responses and dramatizes her victories too. However, the film doesn't give her own thoughts any consideration until late in the film. For more than an hour, her political personality was reduced to note cards and memorized lines. Even liberals felt like the film over-simplified Palin. Then, quickly, after her debate victory over Biden, the film deviates from its original course and presents her as an attention-mongering bubble-head.

At that point, the film became less interesting. I would say that it also became less believable, but both Steve Schmidt, lead campaign strategist for the 2008 McCain campaign, and Nicolle Wallace, Senior Campaign Adviser, say that the film is largely accurate.

There were two scenes in the film that were utterly made up to present Palin in a bad light. In the scene that Schmidt asks Palin about Britain, she doesn't know that the Prime Minister heads the government. I'm sure this scene was added because it is a fact that nearly every American knows and it puts the audience on a superior intellectual level to Palin, underscoring her lack of political knowledge to benefit an audience that probably knows even less than her. The second is when Palin outright states that she is the main draw of the campaign so she will do "what she wants." We know that many campaign advisers got this impression of her, and in order to convey that within the framework of a two-hour movie, I suppose there's no more efficient way than to have her say it, but I seriously doubt she said something so obviously selfish.

The first half of the film is superior than the second. Enough so to keep me invested to the end. I especially liked the use of Obama footage that made him appear as a formidable antagonist. After the movie began portraying Sarah Palin as nothing more than an out-of-control ego, I gleaned nothing new or insightful from the film. The film was rewarding, mostly. The film was interesting, mostly. I can't ask for too much more out of a political movie.

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Act of Valor

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Edit

Game Change

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